The Mind's Ear Program #35: "Regret This Very Day, Volume III"

On November 18th, 1978, 918 people perished in Guyana in what has
come to be known as the Jonestown Tragedy. The vast majority of those
who perished were American citizens, and the Jonestown Tragedy remained the greatest loss of American life in a single deliberate act until the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11th, 2001. “Regret this
very Day” is a multi-part, nonlinear experimental radio documentary
about the Peoples Temple and its charismatic founder Jim Jones
produced by Ernestus Jiminy Chald. Unlike more traditional
documentaries, “Regret this very Day” has no narrator or explanatory
notes to fill the listener in on the particularities of what occurred
within the Peoples Temple. Instead, Ernestus Jiminy Chald laboriously
examined hundreds of hours of recorded tapes left behind by the Peoples
Temple and selected material directly from these tapes to give the
listener an insider glimpse into the world that Jim Jones and his
followers inhabited.

People often wonder how this sort of event could have happened. Why would nearly 1,000 people become so devoted to a single man and his
revolutionary cause that they would literally give up their lives for
him when ordered to do so? To many, such a notion seems absurd and
unfathomable. But when one listens to these tapes, and considers the
circumstances surrounding what happened in Jonestown on that fateful day and the events that led up to it, a portrait begins to emerge of a
community that simply wanted to create a better world for their children
than the racist, hateful world that American society offered them, and
of the captivating leader who promised to create that world for them.

This program was produced by Ernestus Jiminy Chald.

Tune in to The Mind's Ear every Saturday evening at 9 p.m. (PST) and every Sunday evening at 7 p.m. (PST) on Free Radio Santa Cruz (101.3 FM).

For more information, visit: www.themindsear.com and www.freakradio.org

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